BEN MAYO

On 7 June, 1944 at 0740 hours I took off, leading Shampoo Red Flight on a dive bombing and strafing mission in the Amiens-Montdidier area. The Squadron, flying time and distance, arrived over the area at approximately 0840 hours. There was a solid overcast at about 10,000 feet, and we started letting down through on instruments. I broke out at 800 feet, indicated, in the middle of a rain shower. My wingman was still with me, but number s three and four were not. We saw several railroad cars on a double-tracked railroad near what I later identified as Montdidier. We attempted to glide-bomb them, but the best we could do was two near misses because of the low ceiling and instantaneous fuzes (sic) on our bombs. As my wingman and I were circling around in this area, looking for something to strafe, we encountered a hell of a lot of light and medium flak from an airfield southeast of town. As I broke away from the airfield on the deck, I saw a truck park with approximately 25 trucks in a little woods south of Montdidier. My wingman and I made two passes at this target, but were unable to determine our results because of the dense woods. We then flew down the railroad to the south for about 25 miles, found some oil cars on a siding, and strafed them. They must have been empty because we plastered hell out of them and no fires started. About this time Shampoo White and Yellow Flight were having a big scrap with a bunch of ME 109s in the area, so I headed northeast looking for them. I had been flying for about 5 minutes when I saw a ME 109 about nine o'clock on me, flying in the opposite direction. I made a sharp 180 degree turn and got on his tail, although I was way out of range. He obligingly made a 90 degree climbing turn to the right ad I cut him off, using water injection and closing to about 800 yards. I started firing short bursts as I had only about 75 rounds left in four guns. He hit the deck and I was steadily closing when he decided to climb up into the clouds. He started a climbing turn to the left and I held the trigger down, figuring it was now or never. Just as he reached the cloud base, I saw his canopy fly off and pieces fly off his right wing. He started to spin to the right and continued same until he hit the ground, at which point he blew up. My wingman, who had been behind me throughout this rat race, now pulled up alongside and informed me that I still had my right wing bomb. I dropped it in the Channel on the way home. I claim one (1) ME 109 destroyed.